Southwest Florida Military Museum & Library Inc

Overview

Mission

The Southwest Florida Military Museum Libraty began under the umbrella Invest in Americas Veterans Foundation Inc., which was formed and incorporated as an outreach to local veterans in February 2009. It first operated at a small storefront on Del Prado Blvd in Cape Coral, FL, before moving its headquarters into a 34,000-square foot facility on Leonard Street on Sept. 9, 2012. In November of 2020 the museum moved to the Edision Mall. The Museum was separately incorporated in 2015. The family-friendly, interactive enviroment features 60 fully dressed mannequins, allowing vistors to better understand the subject and period customs they are viewing. A number of the display stations have individual monitors and two stream videos are included. The history of Cape Corals Iwo Jima statue at Echo Park is presented in a 23 minute streaming video in the Michael Gemi Theater. The secon streaming video honors Capt. Daniel Eggers, a native of cape Coral and a Citadel graduate who was killed in Afghanistan. SW Florid Military Museum Library Inc. is dedicated to honoring our military, preserving and displaying military artifacts and memorabile while educating the public and future generations about our Nations military heritage. We strive to research and present as much United States military history as we can - with displays ranging from the revolutionary war through the Afghanistan conflict. All of our artifacts have been donated or loaned by the military government and very generous individuals. Our volunteers and directors have spent several thousands of hours over the last few years, collecting repairing and cleaning these military items to have them available for viewing to the general public. The southwest Florida Military Museum Library contains over four thousand eight hundred military nonfiction books, manuals, and yearbooks and an extensive collection of books on ships, airplanes, and vehicles and other military subjects. There is a special A1 Cook memorial book model airplan collection as well. A1 Cook was a veteran and author of many war books. There is a large collection of VHS tapes and DVDs pertaining to military history. A 37-star flag is displaed on the back wall of the library. Admission to the Museum is free.

Operating model

Revenue model

Donor-supported. 71% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.

Distribution model

Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.

• Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.

The verdict

SUPPORTED - The filed numbers largely add up and most voting board members are independent. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and a relatively small share of total spending goes to programs.

Rating breakdown

• Financial Efficiency: 53
• Transparency & Controls: 84
• Accountability: 74
• Sustainability: 22
• Growth: 20

Detailed rating inputs

Details

• Where the money goes: 57.3% of revenue deployed · 34.6% of spending went to programs
• Governance: 3 of 3 board members independent · 3 of 8 filing controls reported
• Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment
• Leadership: top reported pay $13K · 3 people listed
• Consistency: 20 of 21 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
• Schedules: 4 filed schedules
• Filing history: 5 filing years from 2018 to 2022
• Contacts: How to reach this organization
• Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
• Related organizations: 1 filed related-organization link
• Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
• People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

• Review — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 57/100.
• Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 35/100.
• Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 7 not reported.
• High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
• High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
• Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 30/100.
• Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Functional expense sum did not reconcile in the filed values.
• High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 19/100.
• High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 4/100.
• High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 15/100.